This is a story about a cat
by dysprositos
Summary: And really, Clint wasn't cruel (not even on his worst days...and this might have been one of them), so just leaving the pathetic, mangy, injured thing here felt wrong. "After all," Clint thought, "I'm a 'superhero' now, I save cats and stuff." Or, how an annoying, dramatic furball might have saved Clint Barton's life. Maybe.
1. Manipulative and Vicious

Warnings: Clint and Tony having a competition to see who can be the most foul-mouthed, some angst.

Thanks to my hella-awesome beta, irite, for providing hella-awesome feedback on all aspects of this story, including the title…

I do not own The Avengers.

* * *

The residential areas of Stark Tower had a list of rules governing appropriate behavior, initiated and strictly enforced by the building's eccentric owner, Mr. Tony Stark, himself.

He'd looked sheepish distributing copies of the list to his new tenants, like even he couldn't quite believe he was being this ridiculous, but he'd handed them out anyway.

"'Cause, um, if we're going to be in the same building, some shit just cannot happen."

Rule number seven was "Absolutely, under no circumstances, are pets allowed."

Unlike rules one through six, rule seven didn't meet a lot of resistance. For example, rule three was "All weapons must be stored in the weapons range" (which hadn't even been built at the time, but it was finished a week later), and Natasha hadn't been overly impressed with that.

"I sleep with a gun under my pillow," she deadpanned.

And Tony was smart enough that he knew when to make an exception to his rules.

But rule seven was pretty much okay with everyone. Those Avengers who had chosen to call the Tower their home (everyone except Thor, for the moment) weren't exactly animal lovers. Bruce had made a sound argument for a fish tank ("They're relaxing," he said, and who would argue with him on that?), but that was the extent of efforts to introduce non-human animal life into the non-R&D floors of the Tower.

Clint, in particular, didn't give a shit about Tony's no pet policy. This had nothing to do with his feelings about animals. Clint loved animals, or at least, liked them a lot. Growing up in the circus, he'd never really had a pet, but he'd spent a lot of time with the show animals. Preferred them to people most of the time. They didn't talk, for one. Unfortunately, his life had always been so fucked up, so disorganized and chaotic, that having a pet _ever _hadn't really been a possibility. But it wasn't that he was opposed to the idea.

No, the real issue was, at the present time (three weeks and four days after the Battle of Manhattan), Clint didn't really give a shit about a whole lot. In fact, he'd kind of taken to letting a lot of things slide. Like, sleeping. Eating. Working.

The others noticed, of course (because Clint didn't even bother with trying to conceal how he was falling apart), but the archer was so closed off that no one, not even Natasha, had managed to get more than a few words out of him in almost a month. So they watched from a distance, gave him space, and hoped that he'd hit the bottom of his spiral sooner rather than later so he could start the climb back up.

And Clint was making admirable progress towards the bottom of his spiral. He had been on leave from SHIELD for a while (three weeks and four days, officially, though his 'vacation' had thus far actually been three weeks and _six _days) and he had no immediate plans of returning. He pointedly ignored calls to his cell, pointedly ignored calls to the Tower, pointedly ignored Fury himself when the director of SHIELD had shown up outside Clint's bedroom.

Instead of sleeping, eating, or working (because how could any of that matter anymore, really?), Clint had mostly taken to filling his time by wandering the streets, up and down the darkest, most shady alleys he could find, through the seediest dive bars. He meandered from point A to point B, and he didn't even care where he went, as long as point A sucked and point B sucked worse.

It seemed like the perfect metaphor for his life.

Clint knew he was looking for...something. Some kind of absolution, or forgiveness, fuck, even some kind of cosmic meaning to the shit that had happened. Mostly, after these "missions," he returned to the Tower as empty and searching as he was when he'd left.

Tonight, though, he found _exactly _what he was looking for.

He'd made his way to his favorite dive bar (it was the dirtiest, the grungiest, and it was chock full of colorful clientele) for the express purpose of slaughtering his brain cells en masse. It had been last call, and if he'd been thinking, he would have ordered three or four more shots of the cheap whiskey he'd come to favor of late (it tasted like shit and burned his throat and made his stomach turn, and that was all appealing to him) but he _hadn't _been thinking, so he'd only ordered one.

Which he knocked back with his usual grimace before standing up from his place at the bar.

And stumbling into the woman who was standing behind him.

He turned to apologize, but he'd found himself face-to-face with possibly the ugliest woman he'd ever seen. In fact, she kind of looked like Banner—maybe more like _green_ Banner, except with boobs (_unimpressive ones, too_) and as soon as that mental image hit his whiskey-soaked brain, Clint had been _done_.

Instead of apologizing to the woman, he laughed. Hysterically. In her face.

Clint's mirth was only been momentarily disrupted when the woman's meathead boyfriend took a swing at him, his fist connecting solidly with Clint's jaw. "What's your fuckin' problem, asshole?"

Taken off guard, Clint stumbled backwards. Regaining his balance, his grin flattened into a frown and he massaged his jaw. He quickly surveyed Meathead and ascertained that the other man was at least 6 inches taller than him, and probably outweighed him by at least thirty or forty pounds.

And suddenly, Clint was inspired.

"My fuckin' problem? I don't got a fuckin' problem. You've got a fuckin' problem, though, your woman's a beast, dude. You into that kind of shit?" And he laughed again.

Most of what happened next, he did not remember. Except that it hurt, and it seemed to go on for a very long time.

He must have passed out, because he woke up in the alley behind the bar with no recollection of how he got there.

Gingerly, he lifted a hand to his face, feeling the swelling around his eyes and nose. His back was killing him, especially around his kidneys, and from the way it looked, at least one of his fingers was broken.

_Fuck. _But then, _Wasn't this kind of the goal_?

Clint was so busy cataloguing his injuries that he failed utterly to notice that he was not alone.

Luckily, his lapse in vigilance was not of the life-and-death variety, and the presence that had been observing him for the last twenty minutes undetected now decided to make itself known.

Clint nearly jumped out of his skin when something damp and furry brushed against his hand. His first thought was 'rat,' because he was in a fucking alley in fucking New York and they had rats big enough to conquer small nations.

When he jumped, he startled his visitor, who arched its back with a vehement hiss before swatting at Clint's hand with outstretched claws and darting away.

So, not a rat. A cat. A mean fucking cat, too. "Jesus, hit a man while he's down, why don't you?" Clint grumbled, his drunk (and perhaps concussed) brain rationalizing that in this situation, it was okay to talk to a cat. "What'd I ever do to you, huh?"

The cat's only reply was a low growl.

"Really? You think you're so scary? You're what, ten pounds max. I could totally take you."

The cat growled again. Clint rolled his eyes. Bracing himself against the wall behind him, he pulled himself up. "Whatever. I'm out of here." He wiped a hand across his face, making a concerted effort not to notice the smear of blood that doing so left behind.

In response, the cat slunk out from under the pile of garbage it had been using as cover. There was a streetlight nearby, and in its light Clint could see the cat more clearly. It was black, or at least dark enough that it looked black, and it was scrawny. Maybe eight pounds at the most, and probably more like six.

As he watched it, Clint noticed that it seemed to be favoring one of its front legs. Almost as if it was aware that it had Clint's attention, the cat's limp became suddenly more pronounced. It mewed pathetically, looking up at Clint with huge yellow eyes.

"What? You can't be all 'I'm going to claw you' and then be all 'save me, I'm pathetic,' cat, it doesn't work that way," Clint told it. The cat mewed again, sounding (if possible) more pathetic. It approached Clint and, limping heavily, wove around the archer's legs. It started to purr.

"Jesus Christ. Manipulative little bastard, aren't you?"

It did not dignify that with a response.

Clint looked at the cat for a moment before massaging his head. Clint knew he was a mess, covered in blood, had at least one broken bone, possibly more, maybe internal bleeding, maybe a concussion. He'd taken a hell of a beating. He knew he should probably take himself to the hospital, but instead he was standing in a puke-drenched alley behind the most disgusting bar in New York City, conversing with a cat.

_A manipulative cat, _he thought as it resumed its limping, purring path around his feet.

Clint leaned back against the wall with a sigh. Somehow, this seemed like the perfect fucking end to the evening.

He sighed again before slipping his jacket off. Slowly, he reached down to wrap the cat in it. In response, it immediately stiffened and hissed before striking out with its claws again.

"I'm trying to help you, shit for brains!" Clint yelled at it, not entirely sure _why_ he had decided to do this at all. Oh, he was drunk and concussed. That was why. And really, he wasn't cruel (not even on his worst days...and this might have been one of them), so just leaving the pathetic, mangy, injured thing here felt wrong. _After all_, _I'm a 'superhero' now, I save cats and shit_.

The cat cowered down, frightened by Clint's yelling, and the archer managed to wrap it in his jacket.

He headed back towards the Tower.

Clint didn't even manage to make it off the elevator before running into Stark.

Which didn't seem fair—it was after 3:00 AM at this point, and it was a big fucking building, and what were the odds of running into another person _right here, right now_, really? Let alone Stark.

Clint wasn't good with statistics, but it seemed unlikely.

Tony had gotten on the elevator on the twenty-seventh floor (Clint didn't even know what that floor was for), and he'd been conversing pretty intensely with JARVIS, their back and forth too much for Clint to follow, even on a good day (which, Clint had already established, this was _not_), so it took the billionaire twenty-seven more floors to notice that Clint was dripping blood onto the carpet.

Clint, of course, had not said a word, opting instead to try his usual strategy of fading from view through non-movement.

It didn't work. "Good lord, Barton, what happened to you? You're bleeding." Tony peered into Clint's face. "Profusely, I might add." His concern—now that he'd noticed—was evident.

With a shrug, Clint replied, "Nothing happened. I'm fine." A lie that was almost immediately betrayed when Clint leaned over suddenly and vomited, gagging on whiskey and stomach acid and not much else. Dazed, he straightened and admitted, "I might have a concussion, actually. Or I'm still drunk."

"No shit," Tony said, stepping pointedly to the far side of the elevator. "Why the hell didn't you go to the hospital?"

And, not really seeing another option, Clint carefully unbundled his jacket (which he'd been holding tightly to his chest) and showed Tony his new companion. "Manipulative fucking cat. It's pathetic and limpy. Couldn't leave it behind."

The elevator doors opened on the floor that housed Clint's rooms. He stepped off. Tony followed. "Um. That's nice. Really, it is." Clearly, the billionaire was trying to focus on the larger picture, despite his abhorrence of animals. "But you're still bleeding. And puking in my elevator. Which is gross and unfortunate. So maybe you should, I don't know, _go to the hospital_."

Clint shrugged. "I'll be fine."

Tony looked at him, disbelieving. "Fuck that. What happened, anyway?"

Clint started heading towards his door. "I made a new friend, that's all." The accusatory note in Tony's voice rubbed him the wrong way, inspired Clint towards reticence.

Tony shook his head, following. "Yeah, 'friend.' Christ. Okay, don't tell me what kind of fucked up shit you've been doing, whatever. But will you at least let Bruce take a look at you? He can probably make sure you're not going to die. It'll make me feel better if you do. Insurance will be a bitch if you die on my watch."

Clint managed to get his door open. He stepped into his rooms before turning to face Tony. "Sure, whatever." He couldn't figure out where the billionaire's sudden interest was coming from.

Uninvited, Tony followed him in. Because this was the most conversation that _anyone _had had with the archer in over three weeks, and Tony wasn't going to let him go so easily. Especially not in his current condition.

"JARVIS, could you send Bruce up here?" Tony asked, following Clint as the archer made his way back towards his bathroom.

"Certainly, sir."

In the bathroom, Clint shut the door before dumping his jacket, cat and all, unceremoniously into the bathtub. The animal huddled underneath the garment for a moment before slinking out and peering up at them. Looking at Clint, it began to purr again.

"Don't let it fool you," Clint told Tony conspiratorially. "It's an act. It's a mean little fucker." He held out his hand, showing off the scratches. "Did this to me when I was too weak to defend myself."

Tony cast a concerned look at Clint. "Are you feeling okay?" He didn't know the archer well enough to know if this was normal behavior or not.

As a matter of fact, it was. This was the most normal Clint had felt in almost a month, except for the whole beaten-to-a-pulp thing. It was like the fog he'd been in had lifted, if only for a moment, and he could see something other than his own misery.

Distracted by the cat, Clint replied, "Huh? Sure." And he went back to watching the cat as it crept around the bathroom, exploring the corners, looking for a place to hide.

A few moments later, there was a knock at the door. Bruce opened it and popped his head in. "JARVIS said you needed me?" His eyes traced around the room, pausing on the cat. "Oh, hey, where did that—"

"It's Barton's new friend," Tony interrupted. "At least one of them. He made another friend tonight, apparently, if the fist-shaped imprints on his face are anything to go by."

"What? Oh. _Oh_." And, seeing the state of Clint's face, he stepped into the room, all business. "Any other injuries than what I can see?"

Clint nodded stiffly, suddenly uncomfortable.

"Okay. Um. Tony. Could you...?"

"Leave?"

"Yeah."

"No problem, doc. I'll just be outside if you need me." And he left, stunning everyone present with his easy compliance.

"Take your shirt off?" Bruce asked, heading to the sink to wash his hands.

Clint obliged, dropping the garment on the floor by the tub. The cat promptly walked over and sniffed it, before curling up in the warmth and setting to grooming its dull, matted fur.

"Ha, cute," Bruce said, stepping over the animal. "Lift your arms?"

Clint did. "Yeah, cute. No, Banner, it's vicious."

Bruce prodded gently at the bruising on Clint's back. "Does that hurt?"

It did, but Clint just shrugged. "Not really."

Bruce worked for another moment, poking and investigating, before he asked, "So what happened, exactly?"

Unlike Tony, his question came across as neutral. Clinical. Maybe even safe. Clint said, "Um. I got drunk. I insulted some guy's woman. She kinda looked like you, actually. Like...green you."

Clint had been unsure if bringing up the Other Guy would be awkward or not, but he was drunk, so fuck it. However, Bruce just snorted a small laugh. "That poor woman."

"That was kinda my take on it, too."

The rest of the exam was uneventful. Bruce finished by taping Clint's broken finger. "Try not to move that, all right? And get some rest." Judging from the circles under Clint's eyes, that directive would probably be ignored entirely, but Bruce thought it was worth trying. He added, "You might have a mild concussion, so I'll have JARVIS monitor you tonight."

"Sure. Thanks, doc."

"No problem. Really." Because Bruce, as much as the others, had been concerned about the archer—and this encounter certainly hadn't put any of those worries to rest. Everyone knew that Clint wasn't coping with what had happened, hadn't even started to work through the guilt that plagued him, but now Bruce had a whole new list of concerns to work through—Clint was losing weight, clearly not sleeping, drinking too much, and instigating fights. None of that boded well for the archer's mental state.

_But at least he trusts us enough for this_, Bruce thought, washing his hands again. He dried them and opened the bathroom door.

The cat, which had been dozing on Clint's shirt for the last fifteen minutes, perked up. Which reminded Clint, "Um, hey. I don't know anything about cats. Should I...get food, or something?"

"Got you covered, Barton," Tony said from the next room, sounding entirely put out. Clint followed Bruce, and found Tony and Pepper standing in his bedroom.

"Hello, Agent Barton," Pepper greeted him, as if it _wasn't_ weird to be standing in his (fairly messy...okay, _really _messy) bedroom at 4:00 AM. She had a large plastic bag at her feet.

"Ms. Potts," he replied, trying to sound less drunk than he was. "What's in the bag?"

"Tony said that you were in direct violation of rule seven, and he _wanted _me to tell you that the cat has to go. So I went to the nearest store and picked up cat food and litter. And a litter box, of course."

Tony sulked, "I thought I paid you to be on my side, Pep."

"Oh, Tony. You pay me to take care of you. There's a difference." She gave Tony an unmistakably warm, motherly look before adding, "Do you need anything else, Agent Barton?"

"...No. But I don't know much about cats..."

"Cats are easy," Pepper told him. "They just need food, water, and their litter box, and they mostly take care of themselves. Make sure the dishes stay full, clean the box out once a day, and you should be fine."

Clint was just a little overwhelmed—he was still half-drunk and in pain—but he thought he had a handle on this. "Okay. I think I can manage that."

"Great!" Tony said. "Then we'll just, uh, leave you to it." He headed towards the door, Pepper close behind. Clint could hear him complaining, "Pep, I _hate_ fucking cats, you _know _that..."

Bruce lingered a moment. "Um, JARVIS is going to be watching you tonight. If you need anything...just ask."

Clint nodded, feeling about as awkward about accepting the offer as Bruce had felt making it.

After Bruce had left, Clint made his way back to the bathroom. The cat had not moved. Clint fetched the bag that Pepper had left and surveyed all of the supplies within. There were dishes, and food, and a plastic tub, and litter, and a scoop. Clint shook his head. "Look at this shit. First you manipulate me into taking you home, and now I'm going to be scooping your shit with a mini shovel. What the hell?"

Grumbling, he set up the litter box, then took the food and dishes to the kitchen. He put some food and water out, and headed back towards the bathroom.

The cat was sitting on his bed. "I hope you don't have fleas or something, cat." Clint made a note to take the damn thing to a vet in the morning, both for a checkup and to see what was up with its foot. Although Clint suspected that the limp was entirely fabricated for sympathy—it had seemed _fine_ for the last half an hour. _Fucking cat._

"I'm going to take a shower," he told the cat, "And then I'm going to bed. You're on your own."

When he got out of the shower, the cat was nowhere to be found. Clint shrugged to himself and got into bed, feeling, for the first time in weeks, like he might actually be able to sleep.

He'd almost dozed off when he felt something land on the bed next to him with a soft _whump_. The cat started purring and nudged Clint's hand, becoming more insistent with each passing second. Clint gave an irritated huff but obliged it, petting the stupid thing softly and mumbling half-coherent insults at it.

Within minutes, they were both asleep.

* * *

Forgive me my trespasses as far as cheesiness goes; I'm taking a small break from my usual doom and gloom to bring you something a little more cheery. Not sure yet how long this is going to be, but there's at least one more chapter coming. As usual, please review!

If you liked what I have wrote,  
please take the time to leave a note.  
If you didn't, that's so sad;  
please tell me what you thought was bad.


	2. This is your wakeup call

Warnings: just language.

Thanks to irite, for not dying from the cute and living to beta another day!

General Announcements: I've started posting more to my livejournal (lokie_the_noble), including previews of new chapters/stories. Still trying to figure out wtf to do with Tumblr; more on that when I get a clue. And I'm on AO3, now (lexxorz) so stop by and say hi. I'll even try to get over my crushing social anxiety to say 'hi' back!

I do not own The Avengers.

* * *

Clint woke up a bit after 9:00 AM, which was amazing. He hadn't managed five consecutive hours of sleep in three weeks, and even though it was a paltry amount of sleep by 'normal' standards, Clint was pretty damn pleased.

That was completely overshadowed by how _displeased _he was with the method by which he had been awakened.

Clint was not the tidiest person in general, and this had become more pronounced in the three weeks he'd been 'on leave.' Cleaning up after himself had fallen by the wayside, replaced with more important things, like wandering the streets, drinking himself into oblivion, and now, apparently, getting into bar fights. Since drinking had become one of his most frequent activities, and cleaning had been mostly eliminated from his schedule, Clint had managed to acquire quite the collection of empty liquor bottles, which was cluttering most of the counter space in his kitchen.

He kept _meaning_ to recycle them, but as they increased in number he became more and more reluctant to bring them out to the recycling bins (_You're starting to look like an alcoholic, Barton_). So, they sat.

Everyone who has ever had a cat as a pet knows that cats love kitchen counters and, unless they've been trained not to, will jump up on them, wander across, and generally make nuisances of themselves.

Clint, of course, had never had a cat as a pet. So he was clueless to that particular facet of cat behavior.

He became enlightened to it, though, at 9:12 AM when he was abruptly wrenched from slumber by a voluminous _crash _from his kitchen.

Except 'crash' wasn't really the right word; it was more of a _series _of crashes.

And he had barely begun to process that, had barely made his way back into the land of the living, when the stupid fucking cat came tearing into his bedroom like it was being chased by some kind of vicious cat-eating monster. It leapt onto the bed, using its claws to get a better grasp on the bedspread, and promptly ripped across Clint's torso, back claws digging roughly into his chest.

Then, it jumped off the bed, opting instead to cower underneath, and Clint was left with a series of deep scratches on his chest and an overwhelming sense of 'what the fuck just happened.'

Out loud, he said, "What the fuck just happened?"

The cat, of course, didn't answer, and Clint reluctantly dragged himself out of bed to investigate.

This went entirely against his plans for the day. He'd intended to stay in bed until noon at the earliest, possibly later. His face hurt, and his head, and his back, and his hand, and with all of that, unconsciousness seemed like his best option. Furthermore, getting out of bed and facing the day was, in general, incredibly low on his list of priorities, and taking care of whatever the hell had just happened seemed like too much goddamn work.

"Fucking cat," Clint muttered, making his way towards the kitchen.

Surveying the scene in front of him, it was immediately apparent what had happened. Well, more or less, anyway. Several patches of countertop were now clear, and there was shattered glass just about everywhere, even in the sink. Clint heaved a huge sigh before looking for a broom.

Eventually, he had to ask JARVIS (who informed Clint, in a rather chastising tone, that if he had cleaned at some point in the three weeks since he took up residence, perhaps he would already _know _where the broom was), and he was making his way back towards the mess in the kitchen when it occurred to him that the stupid fucking cat might have cut itself on the glass.

Clint heaved another huge sigh before wandering into his bedroom. "Cat?" he inquired, feeling entirely ridiculous. "Are you okay?"

_Cat's not gonna answer, dumbass_, he thought to himself, just as he heard a tiny, pathetic 'mew' from under the bed.

Shrugging (_Maybe the cat _is _gonna answer_), he lifted the blankets and peered under the bed. The cat was huddled near the wall, exactly far enough from all sides of the bed that Clint could not reach it. "Not gonna make this easy, are you?"

He reached back towards the cat anyway, figuring he could at least make an effort. His efforts were rewarded when the cat lashed a paw out, scratching at Clint's outstretched hand. Again. He quickly drew it back. "Fucker! Jesus, what's your _problem_?"

And then what had been an idle quest became a mission. With an angry huff, ignoring the various aches and pains plaguing him, Clint grabbed onto one corner of his bed and yanked it away from the wall. Exposed, the cat looked quickly at Clint, before darting away, past Clint's legs, and towards the kitchen.

"Not that way, dumbass, you're going to cut yourself!" Clint growled at it, roughly shoving his bed back against the wall. He made his way to the kitchen, where the cat was sitting, posing in fact, on the now-exposed countertop. It looked elegant, graceful, and somehow condescending.

Looking Clint straight in the eye, it meowed pointedly and looked down.

And, Clint could see, the cat was positioned on the counter directly above its food and water bowls. Its _empty _food and water bowls.

"You're fucking kidding me," Clint said, head cocked to one side. "No fucking way. Was that my wake up call?"

The cat meowed again. Carefully avoiding the glass, Clint took the opportunity to step towards it, quickly examining it for injuries. It was, predictably, one-hundred percent fine.

Well, aside from apparently _starving to death _or something.

With narrowed eyes, Clint glowered at the cat, giving it his hardest 'assassin death-glare.' The cat was entirely nonplussed, and so, grumbling, Clint refilled its dishes before setting to cleaning up the glass.

He sighed. _At least with all the bottles broken, you look like less of a drunk, Barton_.

Somehow, that didn't make him feel any better.

Once he'd gotten all the glass off the floor, leaving the rest of the mess behind felt wrong. With more snide assistance from JARVIS, Clint located the other necessary cleaning implements and, within an hour, had done what he considered a reasonably good job tidying his entire apartment.

Looking around, he declared, "Hah. Joke's on you, cat. Now there's nothing left for you to knock over. Fun's over!"

The cat, of course, was nowhere to be found.

Because it was in Clint's prematurely-vacated bed, snuggled under the covers, taking up more space than a six pound animal should have been able to.

"Really? Go fuck yourself, cat," Clint told it, making no effort to mask the resentment in his voice.

In response, it purred, rolling over onto its back so Clint could scratch its belly.

He reluctantly obliged, sitting down next to it. "I need to take you to the vet," he mused, gently rotating the paw he'd seen the cat favoring the previous night.

The cat stopped purring abruptly, and leveled Clint with a glare. It stood and, without a backwards glance, stalked away.

* * *

Predictably, Pepper was, as she was in all things, efficient and effective.

"Sure, I know a vet you can take that fleabag to," Tony said in response to Clint's hesitant query. "Or maybe I'm thinking of a taxidermist."

Clint had come down to one of the common areas, looking for Bruce (he'd showered again and needed his finger re-taped) and had instead found Tony engaged in a fierce game of Mario Kart with Steve. So he thought he'd ask if the billionaire had any vet recommendations, since Stark seemed to know just about everyone in the damn world.

Clint rolled his eyes. "That's very funny. Really. I'm in hysterics."

Steve, who looked completely surprised that Clint was both out of his rooms before noon _and _interacting with other people, asked, "You have a cat, Agent Barton?" He pointedly said nothing about the state of the assassin's face, knowing that drawing attention to it would probably just be awkward, might even make Clint uncomfortable enough to go back into hiding. Besides, Bruce had given him the rundown of the situation earlier...although he hadn't mentioned a cat.

"That's right," Tony answered gleefully, "Barton's in violation of rule seven. I'm having him evicted."

"You certainly are _not_," Pepper declared, striding into the room. "Tony, I need you to look over those plans I sent you last night—"

"—Working on it, Pep, and why can't I evict Barton?"

"You're not 'working on it,' you're playing a video game, Tony, I'm not blind. And you can't evict Agent Barton because I said so." She leveled Clint with the same motherly look he'd seen her giving Tony the previous night. "Besides, I know for a fact you've violated rule nine at least...six times, and it would be hypocritical at this point if you evicted Agent Barton."

Clint thought for a moment, trying to remember what rule nine had been.

Tony stood from his spot and turned the Wii off. "Sorry, Cap, gotta go. Duty calls." He turned to Pepper and murmured in her ear as he passed, "I wouldn't say that _all _six of those were in 'public' places, Pep. I mean, really, it's my building, so you'd think I could get some leeway..."

And Clint remembered rule nine. 'No public displays of affection, by which I mean no screwing in public places.' He shook his head, massaging the bridge of his nose. "Didn't need to know that, thanks."

But neither of them looked chagrined in the least, and Tony gave Pepper a quick kiss before slipping off to wherever it was he worked.

Steve cleared his throat. "So, Agent Barton, why does your cat need to go to the vet? Is it sick?"

"Huh? No. I don't think so. It was limping last night. Seems fine today, but who knows? Anyway, it might have fleas or something, so it's probably best to get it checked out." He paused, then added, "Could you maybe stop with the 'Agent Barton' thing?" It was weirding him out; no one called him that except when he was on a mission.

"Uh, sure." Steve didn't say what he was thinking—that, even after living in the same building for more than three weeks, he didn't feel like he'd seen enough of the archer to move past formalities. "Is Clint good?"

Clint nodded. Before he could say anything else, Pepper said, "Okay, I have a list of vet clinics in a five-mile radius. I've sent the numbers from the five highest-rated to your phone," Clint felt his pocket vibrate, "If you'd like, I can make the call for you."

Considering that he hadn't even asked 'Pepper, do you know where I could find a vet' yet, Clint was flabbergasted. "Uh...no, I think I can manage. Thank you, though."

She smiled at him. "Not a problem, Clint. If you need anything else, feel free to ask. Please."

He nodded slowly, and she left, heading in the general direction that Tony had gone moments before.

"I think she likes you," Steve said.

Clint shook his head. "Don't know why the fuck she would."

* * *

Clint eventually found Bruce (looking very distracted and more than a little bit like a mad scientist, truth be told) in one of the labs on the sixty-fifth floor.

"Hey," the physicist greeted him. "Can I help you?"

In response, Clint help up his injured hand. "Kinda needed to shower. Twice. The tape came off."

Bruce nodded. "Did you bring the tape with you?"

Of course Clint hadn't. He smacked himself in the forehead. "Nope. Sorry, I was having one hell of a morning. You would _not _believe that fucking cat..."

Bruce laughed. "Bet I would. But come on. Let's just go up to your place; I need the break. I forgot how uh, great technology is. And how often it breaks."

And Clint couldn't help but chuckle at the pained expression on Bruce's face.

So he led the physicist back upstairs and into his (much cleaner, thank God) rooms. Clint went back to the bathroom to grab the tape, and when he came back, the cat was demanding Bruce's undivided attention, strutting back and forth across the kitchen counter in front of him.

"You name it yet?" Bruce asked, scratching the cat's back near its tail.

Clint shook his head and shrugged. "Don't know if it's a boy or a girl."

"It's pretty easy to determine that sort of thing," Bruce said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah...seemed invasive to just dive in and check," Clint admitted with a small smile. He knew it was ridiculous. Bruce didn't say anything, though, just motioned for Clint to hand him the tape. Within a few minutes, he'd gotten Clint's broken finger immobilized again. "Any other complications? Pain?"

"No, I'm good." Because admitting how much pain he was in still seemed too dangerous, and really, it wasn't anything he couldn't handle himself.

They were interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. "Barton, open the damn door," came Natasha's voice from the other side. "I know you're in there."

"Fuck," Clint muttered. "This is the part where she rips me a new one." He figured he was lucky she had waited this long.

Bruce didn't know if he should be amused or feel pity for the archer's plight, so he patted Clint's shoulder awkwardly. "She's pretty scary."

"I heard that, Banner."

"And that's my cue to go," Bruce made his way to the door. He opened it and nodded politely at Natasha. "Agent Romanoff."

She grabbed his wrist in an iron grip. "What was that?"

"I mean, uh, Natasha." She let him go, and he practically scurried back towards the elevator..

Clint didn't have any time to laugh at the poor physicist's plight before Natasha had barged into the kitchen and slammed the door behind her. "Okay, Barton, I've put up with the whole self-pity, self-loathing, whatever thing for three weeks, and that was fine, but now you're letting, what, 300lb amateurs beat up on you?" She indicated the bruising on his face, saying, "These are pathetic. Please tell me the other guy looks worse." Clint shook his head slowly, and Natasha sighed. "I'm embarrassed to know you right now."

That more or less summed up how Clint felt about himself, these days.

Neither of them spoke for several minutes, until Natasha asked, "Did it help, at least? You seem...better."

And Clint _did _feel better, but he thought back to how he'd felt when he'd awoken behind that bar, lying in someone else's puke, beaten half to death and wishing that it had gone the rest of the way. He'd felt just as hopeless, and desperate, and empty as he had before he'd let Meathead tenderize him. So he answered Natasha, "No, I don't think it did."

She looked puzzled. "Then...?"

A very impatient _meow _sounded from somewhere near their feet.

Natasha narrowed her eyes at Clint, before raising an eyebrow and looking down. "A cat, Barton?" Of course Tony had mentioned the cat (he just couldn't let that go unremarked upon) when he told her what had happened, but she wasn't going to believe it until she saw it.

Defensive, he said, "Hey, it was injured, I couldn't just _leave _it there."

"Leave it where?"

"It was in the alley behind the bar I was at last night, Nat. Limping. It was pathetic, and alone, and I'm not an asshole..." he trailed off, unable to gauge the expression on Natasha's face. She looked oddly...pleased. "What?"

One corner of her mouth curled up. "You're keeping it, I hope."

That didn't answer Clint's question, but he answered, "Yeah, I guess? I have a list of vet clinics nearby, I'm going to get it checked out."

Natasha nodded authoritatively. "Good. That's good." She considered a moment, before adding, "Need help getting it to the vet?"

And well, Clint had exactly zero experience with pets, so he wasn't about to turn down any offer of help. "If you don't mind."

"I don't."

* * *

Clint made the appointment—only one of the clinics had an opening that day, so that narrowed his choices down (which was good because making a decision about it might have proven to be too much damn work), and several hours later, they were on their way. Natasha drove, and Clint clutched the cat, wrapped in a towel, in his lap.

At the vet's office, the receptionist asked, "Patient's name?"

"Clint Barton."

The receptionist gave him a _look_, but then, taking in more thoroughly the state of Clint's face, softened. "What's the cat's name, sweetie?"

This seemed like a ridiculous convention—why would the damn cat's name matter? Plus, there was the small fact that, "Um, it doesn't have a name."

The receptionist raised an eyebrow. "It?"

"I don't know if it's a—"

She interrupted him, with a clear air of 'this guy's hopeless.' "Please have a seat, we'll call you when we're ready, Mr. Barton."

Clint joined Natasha where she was sitting in a row of chairs against the wall. "I think they're going to call the cops for animal abuse, Nat, apparently I'm some kind of freak for not getting all up in my cat's business."

She grinned and patted his hand. "Not many people have that kind of respect for privacy, Clint."

"Mr. Barton and...Unknown?" a vet tech called, several minutes later.

Clint turned to Natasha. "Wanna come?"

She shook her head. "Nah, I'm good here."

Clint shrugged and followed the vet tech into one of the exam rooms.

They got through the preliminary stuff pretty easily—the cat was pliant under the vet tech's hands, and allowed itself to be weighed (Clint was right, he was pleased to note; the cat weighed only six and a half pounds) and to have its temperature taken. As soon as the vet tech left to get the doctor, though, the cat immediately made a beeline for the sink, hunkering down inside.

"You're ridiculous," Clint told it, rolling his eyes. "What could you possibly be afraid of?"

The cat popped its head out of the sink to glare at Clint before ducking down again.

"I see how it is. Fine, be that way. See if I let you in my bed tonight, you little shit."

"Spoken like a true pet lover," the doctor said, striding into the room. "Hello, I'm Dr. Stevenson. You must be Mr. Barton." The vet's gaze lingered on Clint's face, taking in the bruises, but he didn't say anything, instead finishing, "And that must be 'Unknown.'"

Clint nodded.

"So what can I do for you today?" Deftly, Stevenson plucked the cat from the sink, setting it back on the exam table.

"Well, I, um, found this cat in an alley last night. I want to keep it. It was limping, so I think there's something wrong with its foot..."

Dr. Stevenson nodded, looking grave. "I must say, Mr. Barton, it's rather dangerous to take a stray cat home. They can carry rabies, or fleas, or ticks, or..." seeing that Clint was entirely uninterested in the possible risks associated with his actions, Stevenson cut himself off. He'd been in this business long enough to know a losing battle when he saw one. He tried a different angle instead. "So I'll examine the cat and make sure none of that's going to be an issue."

The cat was less amenable to being handled by the doctor, and at one point managed to make a break for the sink. But Clint held it in place while the vet combed through its fur, looked in its ears and mouth, and palpated its stomach.

In the middle of this, Stevenson looked suddenly surprised. "That's...odd."

Immediately on edge, Clint asked, "What?"

Stevenson shook his head. "Nothing bad. It's just...this must have been someone's pet at one point. He's neutered."

"He's a he?"

"Yes, Mr. Barton. He's definitely a he."

The rest of the exam was uneventful, and Stevenson followed it up with a whole slew of vaccines. The cat glared at Clint the whole while, as if to say 'I will get you back for this indignity.'

On the subject of the cat's limp, Stevenson told Clint, "Probably he _did _injure his paw, but cats are amazingly resilient creatures. Very good at hiding when they're in pain. Keep an eye on him, and let me know if anything changes, but I think he's going to be fine. Otherwise, he's a little underweight, but healthy."

"No rabies? Fleas? Ticks?"

Stevenson raised an eyebrow, like he was surprised Clint had been listening to that part at all. "Nope. I recommend keeping him inside at all times to avoid all of that, as well."

Clint nodded. "Of course."

So Clint took his cat and settled his bill ("You're an expensive little fucker, aren't you?" Clint asked the cat, to the general horror of the other waiting-room occupants) and soon he and Natasha were heading back to the Tower.

"You wanna get dinner?" she asked him, while they were en route. This was something that she had asked him no fewer than twenty-one times since the battle, and Clint had declined every single time. He was more interested in liquor than food, and was most of all interested in spending his time in pursuit of some kind of nothingness. Interacting with other people got in the way of that.

Tonight, though, instead of flat-out declining, Clint gestured to the cat in his lap. "We should drop him off first. Don't want to leave him in the car for too long; he'll probably piss on everything out of spite."

Natasha shot him a quick look. "Was that a 'yes?'"

Like it was the most normal thing in the world, he replied, "Yeah? I was thinking...Thai."

Natasha decided she would eat just about anything he suggested, if he was actually showing enthusiasm about _eating_. "Thai works for me."

"Great. That one place?" He shifted the cat in his lap, maneuvering so they were both more comfortable. The cat began to purr, enjoying the new position.

"Sure thing."

Clint stretched his legs out in front of him, settling back into the car seat. "Great. I feel like I could eat a fucking horse or something."

Natasha ruthlessly crushed her sudden urge to cheer, knowing that probably wouldn't go over very well. Instead, she reached a hand out and scratched the top of the cat's head.

In response, it nipped at her finger.

Clint smirked. "That's right, cat, tell her to keep her hands on the wheel."

Even Natasha had to smile at the cat's self-satisfied purr.

* * *

Thanks for reading/following/favoriting/and of course, reviewing.

Speaking of, please do. Review, that is. I mean, I have to know: is this too cute, or what?


	3. One Step at a Time

Warnings: just the combined bad language of Clint and Tony.

My beta, irite, is the glue that holds this whole process together. And who doesn't love glue?

I do not own The Avengers.

* * *

There were approximately a million places to get Thai food in New York, but there was only one place that Clint liked. He couldn't pronounce the name (the Thai language was one of the few languages that he just _struggled _with), so he referred to it consistently as 'that one place' and Natasha knew what he meant.

Instead of dropping the cat off, though, they decided that they'd get take-out. Natasha could tell that Clint was still in a lot of pain, and she figured she'd save him the trouble of acting like he wasn't. She didn't say as much, instead opting for something along the lines of "It'll just be easier this way." Not her best lie, but Clint was distracted enough that he didn't notice.

Natasha ran into the restaurant while Clint waited in the car, holding the cat and trying to prevent it from squirming away and commencing an exploratory mission through the vehicle. He was more or less successful, and by the time Natasha made her way back to the car, he'd managed to get a pretty firm grip on the damn animal.

"Pad thai good for you?" Natasha asked, sliding into the driver's seat and placing several boxes in the backseat.

Clint nodded, shifting the cat. "Sure. Sounds good. As long as there's a lot of it." He didn't know how he had overlooked it before, but now that he thought about it, he was _hungry_.

"Gotcha covered, Barton, don't worry," Natasha reassured him. She was so thrilled that he was showing an interest in dinner that she'd ordered enough food for four or five people.

The cat was apparently very interested in the food; as soon as Natasha shut the car door, he began wiggling in Clint's arms, trying to get to the boxes. Clint held onto him tightly, though. "Nice try, cat, but you're not getting my fucking food. Besides, you don't want to eat that shit."

Natasha shot Clint a quick look. "You're conversing with a cat, Barton."

This, Clint was aware of. But it was easy to explain. "I have a concussion."

Natasha snorted. "Right. Keep telling yourself that."

"What're you saying, exactly, Nat?"

In response, she smirked and turned the radio on. "I think you know."

They didn't converse for the rest of the ride back to the Tower. Clint was too preoccupied trying to keep the cat from escaping (which demanded his full attention) and Natasha was too busy driving (with that little half-smile on her face again, what the hell _was _that?) so neither of them really minded the quiet.

Back in his rooms, Clint set the cat down on the floor in the kitchen before moving to the cupboards and pulling out plates and cutlery.

"You cleaned," Natasha observed, looking around her.

"Yeah. You didn't notice that earlier?" Clint peered quickly into the cat's bowls before adding more kibble. "I put like, a whole hour's worth of effort into it." He added more water to the other bowl. With a purr, the cat commenced eating.

"Of course I noticed you've decided to stop living in your own filth. I just didn't say anything," Natasha answered, dishing up the food and pouring drinks. "It's a nice change, though." She handed him a plate.

Clint remembered the last time she'd been in his apartment. It had been five or six days ago, and he'd been spectacularly hungover. She'd stopped by with the paperwork from SHIELD he needed to fill out so he could get back to work ("You need to get back to work, Barton. Make some sort of damn progress towards it, anyway.") and found him on the filthy kitchen floor, near a puddle of vomit, half-full fifth of Jack Daniel's close at hand.

He'd shot her down, of course, since his idea of 'progress' at the time was managing to clean up the vomit before it had congealed into a semi-solid mass. And he knew the first part of getting back to work was going to be a psych eval, and that was something that wasn't going to happen.

So, yeah, he could see why Natasha might find this situation improved. "Cat's a bastard," Clint said, by way of reply. "Gave me a hell of a wake-up call, so I figured if I cleaned, he'd have less shit to knock over. Might be able to get some rest."

Natasha nodded. "Well, it's good that _something _finally motivated you to get your shit together. The three-week long bender was getting a little hard to watch."

Clint looked up from the food he'd been shoveling into his mouth. "What?"

Natasha looked immediately like she regretted having spoken, but then she set her jaw. "Yeah. Watching you fall the fuck apart for three weeks instead of, I don't know, asking for help was kinda painful, Clint."

He shook his head, taking another bite of his dinner. "I didn't—I don't need _help_, Nat. What the fuck?"

And now she looked annoyed. "You don't need help? You can't really be that stupid. Look, no one blames you for being a little...rough, after what happened with Loki—"

At the 'L' word, Clint stiffened visibly. Natasha plowed on, though—she'd already started this, and it was time to finish it. "But we've all been trying to get through to you for three weeks, and instead of letting us, you've shut down, Clint. This is the first time in almost a month that I've gotten more than two words out of you, about anything! You need to face what happened, not block it out."

Defensive, now, Clint growled, "What the _fuck _do you think I've been doing?"

Natasha met his glare. "Hiding from it."

Clint slammed his plate down on the counter. "The fuck I have! You think this is easy? Nat, what I did—"

Apparently unperturbed by the drama happening around him, the cat jumped up on the counter and, unnoticed, began casually licking Clint's fork.

"You didn't do anything, Clint. It was all Loki, and everyone knows that. Except you. Can't you just let it go?" Her gaze flickered momentarily sideways, taking in the cat's activities. "Um, Clint—"

"So, what? You're saying I've been having a pity-party for a month? You think I can just put this behind me? _Let it go? _It's not that fucking simple." He picked up his plate and fork, and took an angry bite of noodles. Natasha winced. "What?"

She cocked her head to one side, like she was considering something. After several seconds, she answered, "Nothing."

Clint took another bite of food, and Natasha smirked. She sobered quickly, though. "All I'm saying is that...it _could _be that simple. You haven't been trying, Clint, and it hasn't been easy for any of us, watching you spiral." Cutting off his angry retort, she finished, "And it's good to see you...doing better."

"I'm _fine_, Nat," Clint growled. "I've been fine."

Natasha shook her head. "No, you haven't been. But I'm finally starting to think you're going to be." She reached a hand out and scratched the cat—who'd been sitting behind them, waiting for one of them to set their plate down—behind his ears. "And if adopting some mangy stray helps you get your head out of your ass, well, I'm all for that."

Clint raised an eyebrow. "You think the cat's going to, what, help me 'heal' or some shit? Where the fuck do you even _get _these ideas?"

Natasha smirked, putting her empty plate in the sink. "No idea, Barton. Only thing is, since you found this damn cat you've been acting more human than you have in weeks." She gestured to the leftovers. "You want to keep these, or should I see if I can pawn them off on someone else?"

Sulking, now, Clint answered, "I'll keep them."

"Works for me." Natasha headed for the door. Over her shoulder, she said, "The cat was licking your fork, by the way."

The expression on his face was stuck somewhere between revulsion and resignation, and she couldn't help but laugh at him as she slipped out the door.

In her absence, Clint turned to the cat, who was still perched on the counter. "That's fucking disgusting, cat." He tossed his fork in the sink, pulling a clean one out of a drawer. "You lick your asshole. And I ate off that." Somehow, that didn't really affect his appetite (he was...ravenous, still), so he grabbed some more noodles before moving into the living area and settling down in front of the television.

This was a situation he hadn't found himself in for almost a month, and it didn't take him long to register it. The combination of being alone and sober began to weigh on him pretty quickly. Within half an hour, he'd finished eating (marveling at how much food he'd managed to pack away, until he remembered that he hadn't eaten anything in over twenty-four hours) and was left sitting in his darkened apartment with nothing to distract him.

That would not do.

Standing (nearly tripping over the cat in the darkness and sending it scurrying off into the bedroom), Clint made his way back to the kitchen, digging around in the cupboards until he found what he was looking for. He knew Stark would probably sob in horror at the cheap shit he'd taken to drinking, but refining his tastes wasn't the goal here. Escaping was, and this shit was just _fine _for that.

Moving back to the living room, he sat down and nursed the bottle, flipping absently between channels. Soon, he was feeling warm and sleepy, and he laid back and settled down to watch some movie he'd seen about a thousand times already. Within ten minutes, though, his conversation with Natasha floated to the forefront of his mind, entirely unbidden but, for some reason, unignorable.

He resented the hell out of her implication (okay, it was more of a statement than an implication) that he'd been 'falling the fuck apart' for a month, that he needed some kind of help. That he'd been hiding. "What the fuck does she know?" Clint mused aloud. He felt something land on the couch next to him, and he reached a hand out and began to pet the cat absently. "I'm not hiding, I just don't..."

_I just don't know how to face it_.

And that was it, wasn't it? He had no idea how to face this, no idea how to move on. The guilt was crushing him, and he was letting it, because he didn't know how to set it down. He didn't even know if he _should _set it down, if he deserved to be free of it.

All he knew was that he wanted an escape, wanted an easy way out, an easy way to stop _thinking_ about it all the fucking time. A way to shut his mind off, because _this_ was all he could think about, and he was drowning in it. Drowning in guilt, in self-loathing, in rage—at Loki, at himself, at the entire fucking world for letting this sick shit happen. And Nat thought he could just "_let it go_?"

Clint clenched the neck of the bottle in his hand tightly, dangling it over the edge of the couch. _What the fuck does she think I should do_?

_Adopt a 'mangy stray,' and 'get my head out of my ass' apparently_, he thought. _Like that's really fucking helpful_.

As if he could sense Clint's train of thought, the cat stalked to the other end of the couch before curling into a ball. Clint watched it go.

And, okay, maybe having a pet was a good thing, though Clint thought Natasha's assessment of the benefits was reaching. The damn cat _had _given him something to focus on other than his own misery, than his own failures and fuckups. The distraction had been welcome, had taken the place of the alcohol, the wandering, had kept him sober and safe longer than he'd been in weeks. Clint couldn't deny that the last 24 hours or so had been...different. He'd felt different, like there might be a _point _to something again, like something might still matter.

He took another swig from the bottle. _So maybe I am getting my head out of my ass. But now what do I do?_

"Probably not this," he answered himself, with a small, breathless laugh. "'Cause this is solving _so _many problems, right, Barton?"

It _wasn't _though, and something—his conversation with Nat, maybe, or maybe even that fucking cat—had cleared his perspective enough that he could see it. Crystal fucking clear. This wasn't fixing anything. In almost a month, he hadn't fixed a thing. All the booze, the bar fights, the late-night avoidance...it didn't bring those people back to life. It didn't undo what Loki had done. All of the self-punishment in the world wasn't going to do that; it couldn't be done.

Suddenly stunned, Clint said, "I can't fix it." The bottle that had been dangling in his hand fell to the floor, unnoticed, emptying the remnants of its contents onto the carpet. He repeated, "I can't fix that shit. I can't."

The cat, which had moved again, this time to Clint's chest, purred its agreement. Or maybe he was just purring in general. Either way, Clint scratched his ears, dazed.

_Is there anything I _can _fix? Is there anything I can do?_

The answer seemed like an unequivocal 'no,' and Clint felt something heavy settle in his gut, a feeling of abject _uselessness_.

Then, suddenly, came the rage. Because he was Clint Fucking Barton, and he was not 'useless.' And he'd be damned if he'd let Loki take his agency, after he took everything else. To hell with that. He would not be made 'useless.' He'd, well, what had Nat said? He'd get his shit together. He could still do _something_. Loki was gone, those people were dead, but Clint was still here. Despite his vague, passive efforts to the contrary, he was still here.

_And what're you gonna do with that, Barton? _

_I'm going to get through this, that's what._

Easier said than done, though. "You have any fucking idea where to start with this shit, cat? I don't."

The cat did not answer, and Clint gently picked it up off his chest before sitting up. He cast a glance at the bottle on the floor before standing, swaying. He shook his head. "I'll deal with that tomorrow." He snorted, "I'll deal with a lot of shit tomorrow." Because Natasha was right, and it was time for him to face up to this shit and stop hiding. He didn't know how, no, but he'd get there. He'd figure it out as he went.

_One step at a time_.

Clint wandered towards his bedroom. With a disinterested sniff at the puddle on the carpet, the cat followed him.

* * *

Clint awoke the next morning around 10:00 AM, after more than eight hours of sleep. His ability to sleep at least five consecutive hours had been completely fucked up until the night before, and now here he was, getting eight fucking hours of sleep in a row. It felt like he had stepped into the Twilight Zone. But maybe that was a good thing.

For a moment, he laid in bed, completely shocked. Then he checked his watch to make sure that the clock next to his bed wasn't off. As he was doing that, the cat hopped up onto his bed and walked across him, settling onto his chest.

Clint rolled his eyes. "Let me guess. You're out of food." He threw his blankets (and the cat) off and made his way to the kitchen where he was, predictably, met with an empty dish. "Jesus, if I ate as much as you, I'd be the size of a fucking house. How're you only six pounds?"

He refilled the dish, then stood in his kitchen, surveying the area around him. His epiphany from the previous night was still fresh in his mind, and he had something of a to-do list for the day, but he wasn't quite sure where to start.

_Easy shit first_, he decided.

Then he frowned. Because really? The first thing he had planned wasn't going to be 'easy' at all.

But, he went to shower, and when he was done he combed through his apartment, through every nook and cranny and cupboard, and gathered all of the alcohol he had left. It was summarily poured down the sink. And he did not mourn its loss, no, but he couldn't deny the faint panic that curled in his stomach as he watched it disappear down the drain.

_Fuck that. You don't need this shit._

Clint brought the bottles promptly down to the recycling bins (after stopping to grab the medical tape from his bathroom—he was thinking today!) where, of course, he ran into Stark.

"What're you doing?" Clint asked him. Tony had just pulled his top half out of the plastics recycling chute, and was now peering disconsolately down it.

"Dropped my phone," Tony replied. Then, seeing Clint's bottle collection, "Wow, damn. And Pepper thinks I drink too much."

Clint could not deny that he was curious as to how Tony had managed to drop a phone down a recycling chute, but he thought better of asking. Instead, he glared at the billionaire. "I was cleaning. Decided the booze could go." He dropped the bottles into the bin.

Tony raised an eyebrow. "More power to you, Barton. Congrats and all that. Now. I don't suppose you're willing to rappel down that chute to get my phone?"

Clint snorted, "Fuck no. Take the elevator down to the basement like a normal person. And it's probably broken anyway, Stark."

Tony shrugged. "It was worth a shot. And I built that phone to withstand drops of more than a thousand feet. There's hope." They headed towards the elevator. "So, heard you went to the vet yesterday. Did you get your cat checked out while you were there? Or were you just getting your vaccinations? Bird flu can be hell, Barton."

Clint groaned, pressing the button for the sixty-fifth floor. "That was awful." Seeing that Tony was legitimately interested, though, Clint answered, "Yeah, the cat's fine. Gonna live a long, healthy life."

Tony grimaced, but managed to sound cheery when he said, "Glad to hear it."

Clint got off the elevator on the sixty-fifth floor, heading for the lab where he'd found Bruce the previous morning. The physicist was there, and looking much less frustrated than he had the day before. He greeted Clint with a "Hey, could you hold on a sec? I'm almost done with this."

He went back to typing while Clint wandered around the lab. After a moment, Bruce followed that up with a "Sorry about that, what can I do for you?"

As a response, Clint held up the tape. Bruce took it and set to work. When he was done, Clint asked, indicating his finger, "So, how long 'til this is better?"

Bruce considered. "Five or six weeks, I think. More, if you don't keep it immobile. Why?"

"I...well, I was thinking of getting back to work soon."

Peering over the top of his glasses, Bruce asked, "Oh?"

"Yeah. Just, uh, sitting around isn't really working out for me." Clint smirked. "Figured I might benefit from the distraction. I mean..." he hesitated. "I need a distraction, you know?"

"Work's probably a better distraction than alcohol," Bruce said mildly. "Or bar fights."

"Yeah," Clint agreed. "Five weeks, hey?"

Bruce nodded. "You could probably get cleared for light duty sooner than that, though." Fury had been trying to get Clint back to work since day one, would probably be overjoyed to re-instate the archer.

Clint shook his head though. "No, I think...I have some things I need to work on. This'll give me time."

Bruce looked surprised, but he didn't comment. He stood, and Clint followed suit. "You know, if you ever need to talk, well, we're a pretty screwed up bunch, but one of us might be able to help."

And instead of abruptly shutting down and stalking out like Bruce had expected (in fact, like Clint had done no less than three times people had made this offer previously), Clint gave a small smile and said, "Thanks. I'll let you know."

Clint left the physicist and made his way back up towards his rooms. At the last moment, though, he headed for Natasha's instead. If she wasn't there—she still went to work, after all—that was fine, but she had something that he wanted. He knocked on her door, unable to decide if he wanted her to be there or not.

She was.

"What's up?" Natasha greeted him upon opening her door, trying not to look shocked that he'd come by. After all, this used to be normal only a month ago.

"Um." Why _was _he here? Oh, yeah. "You had a file for me last week," he told her, referencing the last time she'd stopped by his apartment. "Said you wanted me to look at it?"

She failed at her attempt to seem nonplussed and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. You told me to go fuck myself. Or did you forget that part?"

Honestly? He had. "Look, I'm sorry, I was just—"

Natasha cut him off. "I know. You want to come in?"

Clint shook his head. "No, I want to get this over with. As fast as possible."

"Yeah, okay." She ducked back into her apartment, returning a moment later with a file. "Here. Sure you've got this?" Because this was a huge step forward.

"Fuck no, I'm not. But I'm trying, okay?"

And that was so much more than he'd been doing a week ago, even two days ago, so she smiled at him. "Okay. Good luck."

Clint didn't know if 'good luck' was the correct sentiment for this, but he said "Thanks," anyway.

Back in his own apartment, Clint settled down on the couch with the file after plugging his cell phone into a nearby wall outlet. He opened the folder, laying it on the couch in front of him. Before he'd even read the first line of the first page, his cat jumped up onto the couch and laid down across the papers.

"And here I thought you were supposed to be helping me, cat," Clint told him. "That's what Nat said. This? Not helpful." Gently, he shifted the cat, pulling the file out from underneath.

The first page was a checklist of the steps he needed to take before he could get back to work ("Checklist for Return to Active Duty," it read). At the top of the list, before all of the other items, someone (_Fury, of course_) had added another line and written 'Fucking Call Me, Barton.'

That seemed pretty unequivocal. Clint sighed, running a hand down the cat's back, before picking up his cell phone.

He dialed the number for Fury's office, entirely unsure of what he was going to say.

* * *

Thanks for reading! One more chapter should finish this up. Which is good, because my WIP pile is massive and intimidating.

Please review.

Please?


	4. More Than He'd Ever Had Before

Warnings: language, ridiculously sappy, feel-good, happy ending. Yes, I warn for those.

Many thanks to my beta, irite, for sticking through this and not dying from hyperglycemia in the process.

I do not own The Avengers.

* * *

As Clint waited for Fury to pick up the phone, he tried to decide what, exactly, he was going to say. Because 'uh, I want my, um, job back' didn't even sound good in his head.

He got three rings to think about it; on the fourth, Fury picked up.

"This is Fury."

Momentarily, Clint considered just hanging up, but the idea of doing that made him feel like some sort of cowardly twelve year old. He was a lot of things, but 'coward' wasn't one of them (and he wasn't twelve, either), so instead he replied, "Um."

There was a long stretch of silence, until Fury barked, "Barton?"

Clint supposed it was good that his inarticulate humming was so recognizable. "Yes, sir."

More silence, broken after about an eternity by Fury's prompting, "I don't have all day, Barton."

Well, it looked like Fury wasn't going to make this easy. That was okay; Clint wasn't expecting to be coddled. He gritted his teeth. "I, uh, got the file you sent with Nat. Agent Romanoff. The reinstatement stuff?"

"I see."

Clint was again struck with the urge to just hang up—it would be awkward as hell at this point, but the longer this conversation went on, the more obvious it was becoming that Clint wasn't entirely prepared for it. Still, he barreled on, determined to see this through. "I want to come back to work, sir."

"Yeah?" Fury asked, and the disbelief in his voice was evident. "Why's that?"

_Yeah, he's _really _not going to make this easy._

And Clint could understand. Really, he could. Fury needed to know that Clint was truly ready for this. Dedicated. Needed to know that Clint wasn't going to crack, fall back into the pieces that he'd spent three weeks breaking into.

Since Clint was still finding those pieces, still trying to fit them back together, he really did understand where Fury was coming from.

That didn't mean that he didn't resent how much of an asshole he was being about it.

As if sensing a prime opportunity to make himself useful, the cat (who'd draped himself back over the folder of papers Clint had laid out on the couch almost immediately after being moved) sat up and reached out a paw to bat at the cord of the phone charger that still connected Clint's phone to the wall.

Clint ignored this, absently stroking the cat's back. To Fury, he said, "I _need _to get back to work. Sir."

It didn't answer Fury's question, not really, but instead of commenting on that, Fury just repeated, "I see." He paused. "Have you looked at the paperwork?"

"Yes, sir."

"Fill out the necessary forms. I want to meet with you before we move forward. See if you're actually ready for this. I can fit you in—"

The cat's attack on the phone charger had become more fierce, and now both paws were involved. Flopping over on his side, the cat hugged the cord to his chest and kicked at it with his hind legs.

"Don't do that!" Clint snapped at the cat, unthinking. Then, it dawned on him that he was still talking to the director. Had, in fact, just interrupted him. To yell at his cat. Clint felt a blush creeping into his cheeks.

_That's really _not _the way to prove you're not crazy._

Fury didn't help matters. "Don't do what, Barton?" he asked, sounding some combination of annoyed and concerned, like he was talking to a toddler who'd just injured himself doing something stupid.

Clint decided it was probably better to own up to the situation than to either act like nothing had happened or to lie. Fury would probably see through both. "I'm sorry, sir. I was...talking to my cat."

Fury took this in stride. "Hmm. Can your cat determine if and when you resume employment with my agency?"

Clint sighed. "No, sir."

"Then maybe you could stay focused on the conversation at hand. Now, I was saying that I can fit you in tomorrow morning. Eight o'clock. Does that work for you, Barton?"

Going to a meeting at eight o'clock _never _worked for Clint, but he didn't say that. He just sighed again and answered, "Yes, sir."

"And does it work for your cat?"

The blush that had been fading from his cheeks flared back into Clint's face. Still, his voice was steady when he replied, "I'm sure it does, sir."

"Great. Don't be late, Barton."

"Yes, sir—"

Fury hung up before he could finish. Clint shook his head before tossing his phone onto the couch cushion next to him. He glared down at the cat, who was doing his best to look innocent and adorable.

"You made me look like an idiot, cat," Clint told him, his grumpy tone softened by the way he fondly scratched the cat's belly. "And I don't need any help on that front, I think I've got it under control myself."

He settled into silence, and for almost half an hour, he sat, petting his cat with one hand and massaging his forehead with the other. He didn't know if he was ready to see Fury tomorrow. Sure, he'd turned over a new leaf, but he hadn't even been sober for twenty-four hours. He didn't know if that new leaf was going to stay turned over. Maybe he was being too ambitious, trying to do too much too soon. But he felt that if he didn't start moving _now _he might never be able to. And that would just be letting Loki win, after all.

_Fuck that right to hell_.

The cat stood abruptly from where he'd been laying and dashed away. Used to the cat's mood swings, Clint just sighed and settled back into the couch. He cast a quick look at the clock. It was just after 1:00. That seemed like a perfectly reasonable time to have lunch. And having lunch was a nice, normal thing to do. Normal people had lunch all the time, and since he was now a normal person again (_Keep telling yourself that, it might come true_) he decided to find some food.

Unfortunately, all he had in his fridge was leftover pad Thai and ketchup. And something that might have once been celery.

_Normal people go grocery shopping, Barton_.

But that sounded hellish, as did eating leftover Thai, so he decided that normal people often go have lunch with their friends, and maybe he should pursue that avenue instead.

As he slipped out of his apartment to head over to Natasha's, he didn't notice his cat slipping out behind him.

* * *

Lunch with Natasha was pleasant enough. Clint told her about his conversation with Fury, and she ruthlessly mocked him for what had happened, calling him a "crazy cat lady" and insinuating that, after having one cat, having ten or twenty was just around the corner. Clint took this with remarkable good humor, only threatening to shoot Natasha once.

Towards the end of their meal, the conversation turned momentarily serious.

"You know, when you wouldn't talk to me, it really pissed me off."

Clint knew Natasha well enough that he was able to translate that into 'I was worried about you, moron.'

He sighed. "I'm sorry, Nat. I just thought..."

"What? That I wouldn't notice? I wouldn't care?"

"No! I thought...I was handling it. That I should have been able to do it on my own."

Natasha nodded. "I know that's what you're used to. What we're used to, but we're on a team now. The others..." she paused. "Well, Stark's an idiot, but Banner and Rogers are okay. You can trust them. Hell, trust Stark, too. He's an idiot, but he means well."

Clint scoffed, "Yeah, I really need to advertise how pathetic I am—"

Natasha cut him off, "Look, everyone...we've all been worried, and we all want to help you, idiot. Even Stark, and he's so narcissistic it's a wonder he's even noticed your existence. We know what Loki did, and no one thinks you're weak because it affected you. You're _not_."

"You sure about that?" He needed to hear it, needed to know that she thought he could do this. Needed to know this before he could even begin to think about taking what she was offering.

Natasha nodded solemnly before flinging a spoonful of applesauce on Clint's shirt.

He reciprocated, and by the time they left the restaurant, Clint was feeling almost entirely like his old self, like a huge weight had lifted from his chest.

"I need to do...something," he said, as they pulled back into the Tower's underground parking garage. "Kinda getting out of shape."

Natasha nodded, getting out of the car. "Fair enough. Have you been down to the weapons range yet?" Tony had it built once he'd known that everyone was going to be living at the Tower.

Clint shook his head. "Haven't really, uh, been in the mood." Using a bow while either drunk or hungover was inadvisable, so he hadn't done any shooting since the battle. "All my gear's down there, though. Rule three and all. But," he pointed out, gesturing with his broken finger, "Shooting's kind of out for the moment."

Natasha snorted. "Fuck rule three." She thought for a moment. "There's a pool. Swimming's low impact." They headed towards the elevator.

"That could be all right." It was probably a better idea than sparring, anyway, and that was kind of what he'd been leaning towards.

"Okay. Meet me in the 70th floor common area in fifteen minutes?" They got on the elevator, and Natasha hit the button for her floor, then Clint's.

"Sure."

They parted ways on Natasha's floor, and Clint made his way back to his own apartment. Opening the door, he called, "Hey, cat, I'm back. Did you miss me?"

There was no answer.

_Because cats can't talk, dumbass._

Shrugging, Clint headed back into his bedroom and started digging through his closet, trying to find something to swim in. By the time he'd finished changing into his swim trunks (which he'd found stuffed inside a spare uniform boot—in his defense, when he'd packed, he hadn't been entirely with it), the cat still hadn't made an appearance.

Given how much Clint knew the cat delighted in being an annoying shithead, this was concerning. With an irritated huff, Clint pulled a t-shirt on and commenced Operation: Find the Fucking Cat.

A quick yet thorough sweep of his apartment revealed that the cat was no longer on the premises.

_What the hell? Seriously? Where the fuck could he go?_

His first thought, of course, was that the cat had been kidnapped. Because Clint was an assassin, and that made him paranoid enough to think that was actually a viable explanation of the situation.

Thankfully, his logic intervened before he could start planning a rescue mission. _Cat probably just escaped somehow. Probably still in the building. Somewhere._

Of course, the building was huge, had about a billion entrances. So if the cat _had _escaped, it very well could have made its way back onto the streets of New York. Clint sighed and rubbed at his forehead.

When a knock sounded on his door, he jumped.

"Barton, are you coming or what?" came Natasha's voice through the door.

Clint walked to the kitchen to let her in. "Sorry, Nat. Cat's...missing. Must've escaped or something."

"You sure he's not here?"

"Yeah, I checked. I think he must have—" Clint felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. With a quizzical look on his face, he pulled it out. It was a text message. From Tony.

It read, 'I'm going to kill your cat.'

Clint shoved his phone back in his pocket. "Nevermind, Cat's apparently tormenting Stark."

Natasha raised an eyebrow. "Better go rescue him, then."

Neither one of them was sure if she meant Tony or the cat.

As they made their way back to the elevator, Clint felt his phone go off again. It was another message from Tony. Expecting the worst, Clint opened it with trepidation. But this one read, 'Scratch that; I'm going to love this cat forever.'

"Now I'm really worried," Clint said to Natasha, showing her the message.

"I'm not even sure I want to know," she agreed.

They found Tony in his workshop. The billionaire was surrounded by half-full cups of coffee and design sketches. He was typing furiously with one hand while attempting to pet Clint's cat (who'd curled up in his lap) with the other. Tony's inexperience in dealing with animals was evident, but the cat put up with his efforts patiently, even giving the occasional purr.

When Clint and Natasha entered, Tony looked up and called to them, "Holy shit, Barton, your cat's a fucking genius!"

"What d'you mean?" Clint asked, as Natasha muttered, "You need to lay off the caffeine, Stark."

"I mean I'm going to hire this fucking cat to work here. It's going to be a billionaire. Well, at least a millionaire. Damn, it's good."

Seeing that someone more competent at cat-petting had come along, the cat hopped out of Tony's lap and wandered over to Clint to weave between his legs. Clint reached down to pet him. "So why'd you go from 'I'm going to kill the cat' to 'I'm going to marry the cat'? And the cat's a dude, Stark, not an 'it.'"

Tony ignored Clint's snark and launched into his story, "So, I was just sitting here, solving all of the world's problems and shit, right, and your cat comes wandering in like his presence in the building ISN'T a violation of rule seven. I told him to get the fuck out of my lab, but apparently his English needs some work or something, and instead of leaving, he hopped up here and started wandering through my holographs and stepping on my keyboards." He paused for a breath. "Then the damn cat wandered straight into my design model and _deleted _it, so I decided right then that he had to die."

Even though Clint knew Tony would never _actually _hurt an animal, he felt himself bristling on his cat's behalf. "Hey, now—"

Ignoring him, Tony continued, "So I got up and chased him around the lab, but all that did was make him run through some _more_ stuff. I thought I'd give it up and just cut my losses, so I sat down and when I looked up, I saw that, somehow, your cat had done _this_." Tony gestured grandly at the screens in front of him; Clint had no idea what they said, but Tony looked thrilled. "I never would have thought of this on my own, but it's fucking _perfect_."

Clint felt his eyebrows creeping up towards his hairline, and he wondered briefly about Tony's caffeine consumption habits. Then, deciding that he had exactly zero room to judge anyone, he muttered, "Glad to hear it. I think."

Tony nodded enthusiastically. "Fucking right. That cat's staying, Barton. It's staying _forever_. I'm going to start building his floor in the morning. There'll be litter boxes in every room, and the kibble shall overflow."

He went back to typing, and Clint bent over to scoop his cat up into his arms. Slowly, he and Natasha crept back out of the lab. Once outside, Clint cast a sideways look at Natasha, and that was all it took. They both burst into laughter.

* * *

Swimming was cathartic and everything that Clint had been looking for, and after he'd sent Natasha away so he could shower and change back into normal clothes, he found himself with several hours worth of time before it would be appropriate to go to bed.

_Even second graders don't go to bed at 6:30, Barton._

The real problem, though, was that, for the first time since his phone call to the director, he was without distraction and thus was actually thinking about the ramifications of his early morning meeting. Which got him thinking about Loki.

But then, just about _everything _got him thinking about Loki.

This wasn't really something he was particularly interested in doing. A lot of his actions over the last month had been aimed at _not _thinking about Loki. At forgetting Loki. Preferably, some combination of the two.

He was settled onto his couch, staring blankly at the television, and was well into his let's-not-think-about-it oh-but-I-can't-stop-thinking-about-it spiral when his cat jumped into his lap and demanded his attention.

The cat landed with his claws out, and Clint's growled, "Fucking cat," sounded loud in the silence. It distracted him and he shook his head slowly before looking down at the animal in his lap.

Natasha's words came back to haunt him. "_...if adopting some mangy stray helps you get your head out of your ass, well, I'm all for that."_

"You know what, Cat?" Clint asked the cat. "Not all distractions are bad." He stood abruptly, dumping the cat unceremoniously onto the floor. Before the cat could move, Clint reconsidered, and reached down to scoop him up. "What the fuck, right? Stark loves you now, I don't think you need to stay here."

And with that, making sure he had a good grip on the purring animal in his arms, he headed out of his apartment.

He found most of the others (everyone but Bruce, actually) in one of the communal living areas, gathered around the television, watching a movie. It hadn't occurred to him that they did things like this, and it seemed odd. He couldn't help but wonder how long they'd been hanging out together, if it had started immediately after the battle, or if they'd grown closer in the time since.

But then he remembered Natasha's words about how they were part of a team, and he figured that maybe this wasn't strange, that maybe he'd been the odd one out for weeks.

Well, that was done. Natasha trusted these people, and he trusted Natasha (even though he'd done a shit job of showing it for the last month), so it was time he accepted what they were offering.

Pointedly ignoring how Tony, Steve, and Natasha turned to stare at him as he wandered into the room, he plopped down into one of the empty recliners, clutching his cat to his chest. "What're we watching?"

"You seriously don't know?" Tony asked, incredulous, distracted from whatever snotty thing he'd been about to say, either about Clint's presence or about the cat's. "Have you been living under a rock for the last decade?"

"Hey now," Bruce said, entering the room with an enormous bowl of popcorn. He handed it off to Steve before settling into a vacant corner of a couch. "There's no shame in being a little culturally...deficient."

"Banner's never seen it, either," Natasha informed Clint conspiratorially.

"Neither have I," Steve offered (like anyone would be surprised by this). "Really, it's just those two," he gestured at Tony and Natasha, "So don't feel bad. Besides, Tony's just upset because his girlfriend ditched him on date night to go over a few files from accounting."

Tony sputtered angrily in response, but Clint tuned him out, focusing on the movie to mitigate any lingering awkwardness of the situation.

The movie, as it turned out, was some incredibly violent, ridiculous drama called "The Boondock Saints." Clint leaned back into his chair, enjoying watching the blood and excessive usage of the word 'fuck.' His cat, though, grew quickly bored with the situation and wiggled out of his arms, heading towards the popcorn.

To get to his goal, the cat indifferently walked over everyone in the room, until he was sitting on Steve's lap and sticking his paw into the bowl.

"Do cats even like popcorn?" Steve asked, watching the animal's attempt to snag a kernel.

Clint shrugged. "I'm really the wrong person to ask. I've never had a cat before."

The cat managed to get a piece of popcorn out of the bowl. He picked it up in his mouth and carried it over towards Tony, looking like he was going to lay down. But Tony said, "Don't push it," and, like he actually understood, the cat curled up on Bruce's lap instead. The physicist stroked the cat's ears, looking pleased.

After the movie's overblown ending, Clint moved to stand up and head back to his rooms (all this community time was stretching the limits of his sociability), but before he could even move Tony piped up, "So, um, not to be rude or anything, but why're you here?"

"That _was _rude," Natasha and Steve said at the same time. Bruce just sighed heavily.

Tony waved them off. "I mean, it's been almost a month, and I've seen you like six times. And more than half of those were in, like, the last two days. So what gives?"

Keenly aware that he was the center of attention (and hating it) Clint muttered, "I'm trying to be..."

"Less of a self-destructive asshole?" Tony supplied helpfully.

"Tony!" Steve chastised. Natasha shot Tony a warning glare.

But Clint wasn't offended. In fact, he was stifling a laugh. "Something like that." He paused, and briefly met Natasha's eyes before finishing, "I just...had to get my head out of my ass. Had to see that the 'self-destructive asshole' thing wasn't working out for me."

Tony scoffed, "So that's it? One revelation and you're fixed? You're all better now?"

With a snort, Clint answered, "Fuck no, I'm not." He didn't especially want to have this conversation, not like this, not publically, but this was something that he needed to accept about himself, and what better way to do that than to _make _it public?

And maybe...by making it public...maybe he wouldn't have to deal with it alone. Wasn't that what being a team was about? And _that _was so eye-opening, so overwhelming, that he rushed on, "Loki fucked me up. I didn't know how badly 'til a few days ago." He chuckled, "I couldn't see it, couldn't see anything except how bad I didn't want to think about it."

His cat stood up from where he'd been laying on Bruce, stretched, and slunk over to Clint.

"I think we can all relate to that. To some degree or another," Bruce said from his corner of the couch. Steve and Natasha nodded.

"Guess getting the shit kicked out of you worked out pretty well for you, then," Tony opined. "Knocked some sense into you, maybe?"

Clint smirked, scratching the cat's ears. "Something like that." He shrugged. "I think the 'mangy stray' might have helped. Gave me something other my own shit to think about."

"Oh God, this is turning into Old Yeller or something," Tony groaned, standing up. "Look, I'm glad you're getting your shit together, and if you want to talk about what the fuck ever, fine. You know where to find me. Now, if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to go see if I can convince my girlfriend to put the spreadsheets away for the night." With a cheery wave, he departed.

Bruce stood up as well, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "What he said. Except less vulgar. And rude. Seriously, though, you shouldn't try to deal with this stuff on your own... It just goes really badly. My door's always open." He paused on his way out of the room to give the cat a parting scratch.

Steve looked between Clint, Natasha, and the cat, before saying, "Well, sometimes it's hard to see the big picture. I'm glad you're finally getting there, Agent Barton. And I'd be happy to help in any way I can."

Clint sighed, wondering how long it would take to break the supersoldier of using titles. When he'd slipped off in the same direction of the others, Clint found himself alone with Natasha. Awash in the warmth of the support the others had so freely offered, he asked, "Walk me upstairs?"

Of course she obliged.

* * *

At 7:55 the next morning, Clint found himself on the street outside SHIELD's headquarters. His stomach was twisting with anxiety, and as he looked at the building towering over him, all he could think about was how badly his last mission had gone, how it had left him in pieces.

_Do you really want to go back so it can just happen again_?

But then he shook his head. Because yeah, that was a risk, sure. It always would be. Missions could always go south, it happened all the time.

Shattering into a million pieces though...that wasn't going to happen again. Because he had people who cared, people who were going to be there to make sure he kept it together. They'd keep him on track. The team might be nascent, but it _was _a team. They'd only get stronger.

And at the end of the day, when the team had been put to rest...

He'd have his fucking cat.

Which, all together, Clint had to admit, was probably more than he'd ever had before.

**End**

* * *

And so ends the tale of Clint and his cat.

Don't worry, though; it's not over for good. I had _way_ too much fun writing it for that. I'll probably come back to these two in a couple of weeks for an all new 'adventure.'

Please leave a review so I know you didn't die from excessive sappiness. I'll feel bad if I've killed you.


End file.
